Conventional ultrasonic scanners dominating the ultrasound imaging industry have discrete transducers and control electronics. The transducers are often piezoelectric. As a result, the scanners are made using “dice and fill” manufacturing processes in which individual piezoelectric elements are cut and then positioned individually on a substrate to form a transducer probe. Such processes are prone to the cost, non-uniformity, and non-scalability of machining and wiring. Control electronics are typically not integrated with the transducers, but rather formed and housed separately.
Ultrasound transducer probes used for medical applications typically comprise many ultrasound elements each configured to emit ultrasound signals that collectively produce a medically relevant ultrasound field used to produce ultrasound images for medical applications. Typically, each ultrasound transducer is configured to emit an ultrasound waveform generated by a corresponding waveform generator. Thus, many waveform generators are needed to produce an ultrasound field with a conventional ultrasound transducer probe having many ultrasound elements.